UPSTAIRS IN THE BEDROOM that he had shared with his wife for more than thirty years, Mr. Derdon stood erect before the chest of drawers that was his alone and worked placidly on the knot of his navy blue bow tie. Mr. Derdon was wearing his waistcoat and his trousers. Both of these garments, which had been made for him at a discount by one of the tailors in the men’s outfitting shop where he worked, were of a smooth navy blue wool material that had a faint gray line running through it. The coat of this suit hung ready to put on, over the back of a straight chair on his side of the bed. The companion chair stood on Mrs. Derdon’s side of the bed, but there were no clothes hanging on it or laid across it. As usual, Mrs. Derdon had got up and dressed herself and got out of the room before her husband was properly awake.

If this were an ordinary morning, she would have finished her breakfast by this time. Already, on an ordinary morning, she would have begun on her housework, and when he arrived downstairs she would leave whatever it was she was doing and go back to the kitchen to wait on him while he had his breakfast. But this was not an ordinary morning. It was a nuisance of a morning. Today was the forty-third anniversary of Mrs. Derdon’s father’s death. She was having a Mass said for the repose of his soul, as she did every year, and, as she did every year on this day, she was going to attend the Mass, which meant that Mr. Derdon’s morning was going to be upset — he had awakened annoyed, thinking about it — because she was not going to be on hand to give him his breakfast and see him off to work.